The Spotted Larinus 



will perish for lack of room at the common 

 table. 



The grubs are hatched in a week: little 

 white atoms with red heads to them. 

 Suppose them to be three in number, as fre- 

 quently happens. What have the little crea- 

 tures in their larder? Next to nothing. 

 The echinops is an exception among the 

 Carduaceae. Its flowers do not rest upon a 

 fleshy receptacle expanded into a heart, like 

 the artichoke's. Let us open one of the 

 heads. In the centre, as a common support, 

 is a round firm nucleus, a globe hardly as 

 large as a peppercorn, fixed on the top of a 

 little column which is a continuation of the 

 axis of the stem. That is all. 



A scanty, a very scanty provision for three 

 consumers. In bulk there is not enough to 

 furnish the first few meals of a single grub; 

 still less is there enough for it is very tough 

 and unsubstantial to provide for those fine 

 layers of fat which make the grub look as 

 sleek as butter and are employed as reserves 

 during the transformation. 



Nevertheless, it is in this paltry globule 

 and the small column which supports it that 

 the three boarders find, their whole life long, 



33 



